Final Reflection

I am really thankful for the opportunity to participate in this class, especially as a late enrollee. While there were some tools with which I was already familiar and using, it was an awesome opportunity to sharpen my skills with the tools I was already using and broaden my horizons on what else is out there that I could be using to enhance my instruction. It really helped me focus on my goals and be thoughtful about how each and every tool could be used to hit those standards and deliver the content.

Tools I liked using Prezi, because while I had encouraged my students to use it all last year and had even set up an account that they all could access, I never found the time to sit down myself and create one. The Study Tools activity was awesome and I found myself using them beyond this class with the 9th grader I tutored all summer. The screen recording feature is probably the one that I am kicking myself for not using in previous years. It is so simple to use. 

Looking back, in comparison to all of the other tools I learned, I found the digital storytelling tools the least helpful tool and not likely something I will use right away. I didn't like the limited creativity in Story Bird or the overall look of ZooBurst. Mostly, I just couldn't think of that many ways that I would use this with my 5th graders or how it would really be worth their time. Maybe this will change as I think more about it?

Learning Process  I wished that I would have been able to meet with my other Island Lake friends at our weekly meetings throughout the summer so that I could learn along with them, but it just wasn't plausible this summer as a mommy of a 2-year-old. So, I played with and experimented on my own, activity by activity. I appreciate that the class was broken into activities and there was a "suggested" timeline. It was great to be able to learn the various tools on my own time. I tried to really make each activity purposeful and use concepts that I actually teach so that the products I created were truly something I can and will use with my students. Most of all though, it REALLY helped to have the tutorial videos already posted for us. This prevented us campers from having to spend precious summer time finding tutorials and instead let us get right down to business exploring and manipulating.

Implications  I think what I am most likely to really build on this year is organizing my YouTube channel and using that as my storage locker for flipped classroom math videos instead of simple posting on the website or putting in Moodle. I know that I will spend a lot of time tweaking my Flipped Classroom strategies this second year around by incorporating other ways (beyond videos) for students to learn at home and in the classroom. For example, I see myself using the new Google Forms with pictures to create a weekly problem solving activity and the Quizlet flashcards to focus more on the vocabulary in each unit.  
I think the biggest challenge I still face as the school year begins is student accessibility to technology. I do have a class set of iPads (10) that students can use and there is a cart of 18 laptops that is housed in my classroom but available to the entire school. Having this is great but I have to share! I discovered last year, when I really started incorporating technology into my classroom through the use of Moodle, implementing Flipped Classroom, etc, that not all students have access at home which means many of them relied heavily of school devices. Despite the district that we teach in, there are students who either have no technology at home (even no cell phone) or whose only piece of technology at home is their iPod - which really limits what they can do beyond watching videos and accessing Moodle. This issue will require a well-planned, face-to-face discussion with parents at the start of the year to emphasize the important role technology plays in learning today without being pushy or demanding. Knowing what I know from last year's class's accessibility at home, I will need to be much more thoughtful in what I can have students do at home to prepare for or complete part of assignments so that they are ready to go at school when the technology is available.
  
This was a fun way to "take a class" - being able to connect and interact with other MV teachers through the blog "following" and the commenting features. I tried to look at blogs of teachers in middle and high schools from all around the district and saw SO many great things going on. We have some very dedicated and forward-thinking staff working in this district and I feel lucky to be a part of it.

Activity 10: Free Choice!

"Twitter? Eh, maybe I should make a teacher account? Not sure how I will use it as I don't even have a personal Twitter, but I'll figure it out right?" That was me last year. The year where I followed a total of 39 accounts. The year I earned a total of 11 followers (two of whom were even parents of my students - despite including a link to "Follow Me" in my email signature). The year I never posted a single tweet.

"Twitter! How can I use this to be a more effective communicator with my students' parents this school year?" Ok that's me this year. I decided to focus my Free Choice assignment on developing my teacher Twitter account and gathering some real, plausible ideas of how I can (and will!) toss this into my communication mix this year.

My first thoughts were... not every family has Twitter and not every family is going to get Twitter just because their 5th grader's teacher might post stuff on there. So... my Twitter account this year is obviously not going to be THE tool for communication, but an extra resource for parents. I don't feel comfortable using it with students because I believe they have to be 13. A few years ago I set up a teacher Facebook page and posted Questions of the Day, links to fun educational websites, etc but the district made me take it down. There was some gray area as to exactly why, but I think bottom line was that my students are 10 and 11. I get it. So, as for tweeting parents, I think committing to a single post (or repost) a week is enough but not too much.

Brainstorm...

These are things I already must do and will do via email because the majority of our parents use email but are Twitter-appropriate and I would do if I had extra time (HA!)

• Monthly homeroom update (similar to the one I would send in a mass email to parents but more concise)
• Event or meeting reminders
• Link to sign up for conferences/goal-setting meetings
• Cancellation of after-school student council meetings or track practices due to weather or whatever

These are things that are not vital information, just more fun or helpful to know. So not things I would necessarily include in a mass email, but easy to share - so Twitter appropriate?

• Book recommendations for parents or kids
• Post/repost tips on how parents can help students at home (math, reading, organization, setting up routines, whatever)
• Post/repost 
• Post/repost funny articles or quotes related to kids or education

Ok I feel out of ideas! Anyone, anyone? What about using hashtags within my posts? Helpful, pointless?

Activity 9: Fitness Assessment

Scenario 1: Collaboration = Harassment?A student is using Google Drive as a writing and collaborative tool for peer reviewing. Juan and Jeremy have used the platform instead to exchange comments that involve name-calling and racial slurs. Jeremy’s parents object when his account is suspended claiming it will negatively impact his academic progress.

1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
The ethical issues here include the inappropriate use of technology and the blatant disrespect and bullying between the students. The boys be using the commenting feature as the teacher intended - a sharing/peer reviewing tool. No matter the age of these boys, I would expect that they know what they are doing is wrong and not what the comments feature is intended for on this assignment. I also question first the teacher. Did he/she review guidelines for the assignment and for acceptable use of the Google Drive feature, as one hopefully would if the peer reviewing were being done in pairs or small groups in the classroom? Where was the commenting happening - at home or at school? If at school, the teacher should have been aware of the bullying soon enough that he/she could have put an end to it immediately. If at home, the parents should have been more aware of what was happening - be involved in their child's academics. I don't really think that the teacher eliminating their use of this platform will be detrimental to their education. There is a plethora of other ways to "show what you know." I agree with her decision - though I might make it temporary until the students have earned back the opportunity to use this platform.
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
While I don't really think anyone's physical safety was at risk here, the emotional well-being of the students involved could be at stake, as bullying like this can have adverse effects in all areas of life.
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario? 
First of all, all students and their parents should have to sign an Acceptable Use policy for technology use at/related to school. I believe we already do this at Island Lake. Consequences for infractions should be stated ahead of time. A teacher should be clear and concise with his/her expectations at the time the assignment is given, including the potential consequences for infractions. Whatever the consequences, they should fit the "crime" and be addressed consistently from grade level to grade level, teacher to teacher, student to student.
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.
This isn't exactly the same, but last year I introduced Google Drive/Docs to my high performing Language Arts class as one way to submit assignments to me. I only had a handful of students utilize this opportunity (in order to have a Gmail email you are supposed to be 13 and my students are 10 and 11, so they needed parental permission to set up an account). The students who did created docs, presentations, etc. for the assignments I gave. One student, who had struggled all year to follow rules, turn in anything, stay focused in class, etc, really liked the new opportunity to use Google Docs and simply click "Share" with me. He shared a lot of his work, sometimes asking for early feedback, and it really seemed to increase his motivation to learn. One day however, I received a Valentine poem from him (part of an assignment I had given). The poem included a lot of inappropriate and far-too-mature language for a 5th grader. Long story short, he had copied and pasted some of it from the internet and I no longer accepted work from him through Google Drive and required him to go back to submitting work on paper or through email with his parents CC'd. Due to the nature of the situation, the student, and the family involved, I did not pull out the Acceptable Use policy was much clearer on my expectations and guidelines for utilizing technology to submit assignments.


Scenario 5: Email Complication
Mr. Lopez, a social studies teacher, has been using the same PowerPoint to introduce content on the electoral-college for many years now. He recently saw a Prezi his high school-age daughter created for a class and asked her to teach him how to create a Prezi. He was able to link images and video content instead of just text and found that his students seemed more motivated and lively in a debate about voting politics.  He decided to have his 7th graders create Prezis in small groups outlining their main points for the election debate.  What Mr. Lopez discovered in the computer lab is that as students were creating Prezi Edu accounts and told to use their school provided email when registering, they could not activate their Prezi accounts because the school email settings only allow emails internally, and therefore cannot receive emails from outside the district. Mr. Lopez’s assignment was suddenly dead in the water.

1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
Honestly, I don't see really any serious ethical issues happening here. Mr. Lopez definitely should have thought out this assignment a bit more (perhaps having his high school daughter, assuming she is in the same district and also has a school email, attempt to set up a Prezi Edu account first). The worst thing he did wrong was waste the students' time in class that day. 
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
Again, I don't really see anyone's safety or well-being in jeopardy here. 
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?
As I said in #1, my first thought would be that Mr. Lopez should have looked into the logistics behind setting up the accounts before he actually reserved the school's computer lab and used valuable class time to figure it all out. I think he has a few options here. He could have his 7th graders use their own personal email addresses to set up basic, non-EDU Prezi accounts. However, with that he has little control over what the kids are creating and sharing and there is a limit to how many Prezis can be created. This option means that students could be making inappropriate Prezis and as long as it's not being done at school, there isn't much he can do about it. So, this option is really a no-go, in my opinion.
Another option he has is to talk with the district technology department to find out if there is a way around this - perhaps the teacher or an administrator could log in to each student's email and activate the Prezi accounts.
A third option is to give his class access to his own Prezi Edu account and allow them to create Prezis under his name. This would allow for all Prezis to be created in one place - and would give Mr. Lopez greater control over what is being created and who it's being shared with.
Ultimately, if Prezis are going to become a common way to create presentations, then the district's technology department needs to look at the features and determine a policy for all district staff and their classes to follow.
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.
Last year, I gave a research project assignment and encouraged students to find new ways to share what they learned - beyond Powerpoint and trifold boards. One or two of my students created Prezis. Then, at the TIES Conference in December, I learned even more about Prezis and set up my own EDU account. I came upon situation similar to Mr. Lopez's when I required my students to create Prezis for a book report assignment. At first, the ones who didn't already have a Prezi account used their personal or parents' emails. But either the "sharing" feature didn't always work well or the limit on Prezis in a basic account prevented some students from being able to do the assignment. I knew the kids had school email addresses (as I had seen this on their Moodle accounts) but I didn't know anything about them being able to access them - I simply assumed they got to use them when they got to middle or high school and that didn't help me as their 5th grade teacher. So, I changed my password to something simple and easy to remember and gave my class my login information. We talked about the importance to opening, editing, and saving Prezis that they created themselves and they had to promise (very informally) not to play with, change, or delete anyone else's work. Honestly, it worked out GREAT! All the Prezis were in one location for me to view and grade, it was simple for the kids to log in and they didn't need to worry about "sharing" it with me or emailing me the link, parents were happy because the kids weren't needing to use their email accounts or create their own email accounts (many of which require kids to be 13). I never had an issue with anyone doing anything to anyone else's Prezi. I have heard that students CAN have access to their email accounts in elementary school - but I haven't contacted anyone to hear the final word on that. Anyone?

Activity 8: Polling and Data Gathering

POLL EVERYWHERE: I use Google Forms regularly to collect assignment responses from my students, so I decided to play around with PollEverywhere a bit. I signed up for a free account. I like that with Poll Everywhere, you can create a poll that can either be clicked on for Web Voting OR can be embedded as a Live Chart in which viewers can text their responses. I decided to create polls I could use at the start of the school year with both my colleagues and my students, similar in their topic.

Here is a poll I created that I would use to ask my colleagues at the end of August. I think this would give an idea of our staff strengths/weaknesses, needs, and thinking directly from the minds of our staff. This might be helpful for our PBIS team to support staff as the year begins.


Here is a similar one I would use with my students, having them borrow one of my class iPads or complete at home, during the first week of school. This would hopefully help build some quality discussion in my classes and help students see that while they are all different and unique, they are working toward common goals.

My complaint about PollEverywhere is that I didn't find the ease of embedding iinto this blog post that I find with Google Forms. The snippet appears in my HTML compose view but looks empty under the traditional Compose view. I also can't figure out how to center the polls so that they are not to the left. Perhaps I just need to research some HTML code for that... but being able to see my Google Form from the regular Compose view where I can choose to center it myself with the traditional "justify" option makes my like Google Forms better.

GOOGLE FORMS: PollEverywhere is fine if I want responses anonymous, but for instructional purposes, I definitely prefer Google Forms. I am excited that this year we are able to input images into the forms - what an improvement this will be both visually and for units in which images are essential to understanding, such as geometry. Here is one example of a Google Form I created last year that I posted on my Moodle page beneath my math video. Students would watch the video, respond by completing the form, and the data would be available to me immediately. I used that data to decide who was learning what the next morning. This formative assessment tool made a big impact on the way I taught math last year. I had a much better idea of who understood what BEFORE the kids walked in the door last year, compared to previous years when I needed to spend time asking questions and figuring that out as the class period progressed.

Activity 7: Cloud Computing

Google Drive has become my go-to place for creating and sharing work, both at work and at school. I love the ease of creation, the simplicity of sharing, the ability to simultaneously work on a single document with others - it has been a lifesaver in many team meetings.

Here is a Google "Presentation" that I put together last year on Idioms. My colleagues and I used this to teach one new idiom each day to our language arts classes.

Google Presentation: IDIOMS

Instead of the traditional powerpoint, I used Presentation to do this because it allowed my colleagues to add their own examples to it as well. The Google auto-save function is amazing and eliminated the need to add/edit this document and re-save to our team shared folder. We were all able to access it and often needed to do so at the very same time. There were times I had made a typo and as I am showing a slide to my class, my colleague is sharing it with her class and fixing my typo. TEAMWORK.

Last year was the first year I really started accepting, or more so ENCOURAGING, my students to submit their assignments to me electronically. When I discovered that one of my students had a personal Gmail address and slightly familiar with Google Docs, I realized the realm of possibilities using this app beyond my personal/colleague life and into my actual instruction. I taught my students how to create a Google Doc (which of course then changed to Google Drive and was temporarily confusing for some of them!) and "Share" it with me. I had a lot of pushback from parents last year as far as expecting my students to have their own email addresses so I only accepted documents to be "Shared" with me if parents had given their child permission to set up a Gmail address. The feature was WONDERFUL - fewer papers for me to lose! In addition, I started providing feedback to the kids using the "Comments" feature and began to allow them to submit work early so that I could give feedback before the actual deadline. There were only a handful of my kids who used the Google Docs feature, but I think that will skyrocket this next year as I now know that the students' Gmail addresses actually provide access to Google Drive and other Google Apps - so no personal Gmail required and few complaining parents!